ASHEVILLE - Take a harder line on police traffic stops, enact stricter housing discrimination rules, get behind the new city equity manager and nascent human relations commission — those were ideas City Council candidates put forward in a Monday debate on discrimination hosted by Blue Ridge Public Radio and the Citizen-Times.

The two-part forum series happened at the same time that early voting is underway, with two weeks until the Nov. 7 election day. Voters are choosing three council members from a field of six as well as a mayor, though Monday's forum didn't involve mayoral candidates.

At noon Oct. 30, the Citizen-Times will host candidates for debate. It will be livestreamed at CITIZEN-TIMES.com as well as the AC-T's Facebook page.

BPR's forum used the theme of discrimination, and news director and moderator Matt Bush asked candidates in their opening statements for the most effective thing the council could do to address "discrimination in all its forms."

East West Asheville piano teacher and bartender Kim Roney offered some of the strongest criticism of city leaders.

"I’ve watched as our City Council missed opportunities to address meaningfully racial bias in traffic stops," she said, "As well as a missed opportunity to sign a nondiscrimination ordinance around housing the way Greensboro has done."

Activists this spring presented the council with state numbers showing African-American drivers were the subject of 18 percent of traffic stops since 2002, despite blacks being less than 13 percent of the city population, according to 2010 census numbers.

Those activists, including candidate Dee Williams, said police should eliminate vehicle stops based on registration or non-serious equipment problems and should be required to get written consent before conducting searches.

At the forum, Williams, a local NAACP officer and small-business owner from Kenilworth, said data were key.

"The only answer to discrimination of course is accurate policy assessment, a racial equity impact assessment as far as policy making is concerned," she said.

African-American drivers were also involved in 33 percent of police searches, despite officers finding contraband on white drivers at higher rates, the State Bureau of Investigation numbers said.

In May, a majority of council members, including candidate and Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler, opted to follow recommendations of Police Chief Tammy Hooper, who declined to make the policy changes, though said police would take other steps, including minimizing financial impact to minority and low-income drivers by only writing warnings for equipment and registration stops. Police would require body camera records for all traffic stops and would audit and analyze stop data regularly, Hooper said.

Answering the opening forum question Lee also said incentives to contractors should be tied to anti-discrimination practices and that Asheville should look for "legal avenues" to protect residents in wake of state laws, House Bill 2 and the follow-up House Bill 142. The laws were a reaction to Charlotte's anti-discrimination rules, particularly for LGBTQ residents, and curbed all local governments' ability to enact such ordinances.

Later in the forum Lee took swipe at the council, saying "I think we missed a real critical opportunity to stand with Charlotte on their nondiscrimination ordinance."

Other candidates pointed to the council's January decision to make equity a top priority, including hiring a special administrator.

"I voted for equity and inclusion manager. And I championed the creation of the human relations committee," Wisler said. "All city decisions need to be made through a lens of equity. We must be a role model in our community I want the city to lead the way."

Sheneika Smith, one of two African-American candidates, including Williams, and one of three minority candidates, including Vijay Kapoor, said as a council member she would bolster the role of the new equity manager, Kimberlee Archie.

"I look forward to working directly with her and bringing some political power and will to her work," said Smith a Shiloh resident and "soft" job skills trainer with nonprofit Green Opportunities.

She said she would do the same with the blue-ribbon committee created to make recommendations on how to form a human relations commission.

Kapoor, a municipal finance consultant from Ballantree in South Asheville, agreed with the commission's importance. He gave a nod to Wisler for promoting the idea "quite a bit" and said "in terms of what the city can do," it was one of the single-most important things to "deal with discrimination issues across the city."

Some other candidate answers from the forum:

What is the best way to address affordability in the city's marginalized communities?

Lee: Use the $25 million affordable housing bond money with a city-controlled project, as planned, while emphasizing transportation options, including buses, sidewalks and greenways.

"We have the opportunity to help people be able afford to live here even though obviously a lot of the housing stock in the city is already pretty expensive."